5 ms·

Sadly, yes. You can buy whatever else you want, even cheaper and better today, and after three years, getting a modern supported OS will be a total pain, due t

Sadly, yes. You can buy whatever else you want, even cheaper and better today, and after three years, getting a modern supported OS will be a total pain, due to binary blobs, custom drivers, custom "design solutions" etc. RaspberryPi is currently the only SBC where you can take any revision of it and still get fully working(! yes, even wifi, bluetooth, etc.) software for it, even if it's not the newest and the greatest model.

_cenw 3y ago
x86 based SBCs being the notable exception, since you're very likely going to get an Intel CPU that's in the lineage to Atom (and now E-Cores)
MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
The first gen Pi Zero W isn't really supported anymore due to the outdated ISA. But other than that, you're right.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
It's my understanding that https://www.armbian.com/ https://www.armbian.com/ has quite broad hardware support, and there are boards from Orange Pi and Pine64 that boast actual mainline kernel support, so this is more a case of a fragmented ecosystem than there being zero competitors that can meet or exceed pis.
megous 3y ago
This is just nonsense. There are plenty of old (6-7 year old boards) very well supported in Linux. I've been using several such boards for that long. If anything, support gets better with time, usually.
- LeafItAlone 3y ago
  Which SBCs are you referring to?
  - megous 3y ago
    Many of these https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/arch/arm64/boot/dts/allwinner https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/arch/arm64/bo... or these https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/arch/arm64/bo... or these https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.6-rc7/source/arch/arm/boot/dts/allwinner https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.6-rc7/source/arch/arm/bo... SoC support for Rockchip/Allwinner is usually good, except for the newest SoC, where the support may be lacking in some aspects that may or may not matter to whatever usecase at hand. Checking the board DT before buying is a good idea, to see what's supported. I have about 8 differnt Orange/Xunlong and Pine64 SBCs, running for between 7-3 years with continuous mainline Linux updates.

_cenw 3y ago

x86 based SBCs being the notable exception, since you're very likely going to get an Intel CPU that's in the lineage to Atom (and now E-Cores)

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago

The first gen Pi Zero W isn't really supported anymore due to the outdated ISA. But other than that, you're right.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

It's my understanding that https://www.armbian.com/ https://www.armbian.com/ has quite broad hardware support, and there are boards from Orange Pi and Pine64 that boast actual mainline kernel support, so this is more a case of a fragmented ecosystem than there being zero competitors that can meet or exceed pis.

megous 3y ago

This is just nonsense. There are plenty of old (6-7 year old boards) very well supported in Linux. I've been using several such boards for that long. If anything, support gets better with time, usually.

LeafItAlone 3y ago
Which SBCs are you referring to?
- megous 3y ago
  Many of these https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/arch/arm64/boot/dts/allwinner https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/arch/arm64/bo... or these https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/arch/arm64/bo... or these https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.6-rc7/source/arch/arm/boot/dts/allwinner https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.6-rc7/source/arch/arm/bo... SoC support for Rockchip/Allwinner is usually good, except for the newest SoC, where the support may be lacking in some aspects that may or may not matter to whatever usecase at hand. Checking the board DT before buying is a good idea, to see what's supported. I have about 8 differnt Orange/Xunlong and Pine64 SBCs, running for between 7-3 years with continuous mainline Linux updates.